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BY 

REV. C. WISTAR HODGE, D. D., 

Professor in the Theological Seminary, 

PRINCETON, N. J. 



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A SERMON 



Preached in the 



United Congregational Church, 

AT NEWPORT, R. I., 

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1881, 

i IT- n 



BY /.r>.«^^\ 

I t/1 n 



REV. C. WISTAR HODGE. D. D.. -. ,^ 



Professor in thb Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J. 



PUBLISHED BY REQUES T. 



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Matt. XVIII., 19. '' If two of you shall agree on earth 
as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be 
done for thevi of my Father zuhich is in Heaven.'" 
Comp. John, xiv., 13, 14; XV., 7; xvr., 23; James 
v., 15, 16. 

The period through which we have been pass- 
incr since the 2nd of last July, has been filled with 
more profound feeling than has ever before come 
into the lives of any of us, as called out by a com- 
mon cause. The painful and long continued sus- 
pense, the extreme alternations of hope and des- 
pair, the anxiety about the effect upon public aftairs, 
have weighted the crisis. The universal and most 
tender sympathy with the sufferer, the love and ad- 
miration caused by his heroic courage, his patience, 
his unfaltering Christian faith, have deepened the 
common feeling. Sympathy and admiration for 
the bearing of those most nearly concerned in the 
sorrow, have added their influence. Every word, 
every pain, every change, has been anxiously 
watched. Never before have any of us felt so 
keenly and so deeply, except when our own nearest 
and dearest have entered ui)on the conflict with 
death. And the feeling has been simultaneous 
throughout the whole country. Fifty millions of 
people, or rather two continents, have sustained 



this tension of feeling through all these weary 
days. Never before has a single case been brought 
home so immediately to such multitudes. Every 
city and every hamlet in the broad land has eagerly 
watched the tidings. The people of Canada, and 
of England, and of the Continent, the rulers and 
leaders of the nations, the Queen of England and 
the Pope of Rome, and emperors of heathen coun- 
tries, have manifested a heartfelt sympathy. The 
splendid fight for life, made with every resource of 
science and appliance of wealth ; the magnificent 
service of great corporations of railroad and tele- 
graph, have made the days memorable. We never 
saw anything like it ; there never was anything like 
it in all the annals of history. The aged will carry 
the remembrance of these scenes to their latest 
days with ever renewed emotion. And children 
will, in days to come, recall the facts and feelings in 
which they have had a share, with ever increasing 
appreciation of their significance. 

And to the Christian, from a religious point of 
view, one of the most remarkable elements of this 
experience has been the illustration of prayer. 
Apart from the character of the man, now passed 
into history as one of the proudest and most cher- 
ished in our galaxy of patriotism, and apart from 
the lessons to be derived in the conduct of our 
public affairs, this subject of the prayers that have 
been offered for the recovery of the stricken Presi- 
dent, forces itself upon every thoughtful mind, and 
demands consideration. It is not exaggeration to 
say that so many and so earnest prayers were never 
before offered for any one man. Many men unac- 



customed to prayer, who have not believed in 
prayer, have earnestly and honestly besought God 
to bless him, and to spare him, and to pity his 
family, and to hel^) him in the service of his coun- 
try. Christians have never prayed with more una- 
nimity, nor with more pleading urgency, for this 
boon from Heaven. They have prayed in private, 
and in concert, in meetings spontaneously assem- 
bled or formally convened at the call of the Gov- 
ernors of the States. And their cause has been a 
good one, and their motives have been right. 
They have believed that the life were better 
spared than lost, that the country would be bet- 
ter with him than without him for its head. 
They have pleaded by the mercy of God, 
by the truth of His promises, and by the inter- 
cession of Christ. And the President is dead. Had 
he lived, we would have said to the skeptic and the 
scoffer, here is a signal instance of a life snatched 
from the utmost danger, by the hand of God, and 
at the instance of the prayer of faith. Shall the 
unbeliever, therefore, say that the result proves 
that prayer has had, and could have had, no influ- 
ence in the case ? Is the granting of our desires 
evidence of the power of prayer, and their failure 
no evidence to the contrary? Undoubtedly this 
will be said ; it is said. Men who have not prayed 
hitherto will be discouraged, and will say that they 
will not be so deceived" again. And undoubtedly 
there is in this a trial to the faith of Christians, 
and they need not fear to acknowledge it. We 
have prayed in concert, we have prayed for the 
good of the nation and of the Church ; we have 



tried to pray with humility, and with submission to 
the will of God, and we have prayed with faith. 
No greater effort, by prayer, was ever made. And 
with all the imj^crfcction and sin which belong to 
our best efforts, the conditions ot acceptable prayer 
were never more religiously observed. And now, 
we ask ourselves, what encouragement is there for 
us to pray again ? Or is prayer of use only to our- 
selves, for the nourishment of the spiritual life, but 
without influence on external results? And what 
are we to say of the express promises of the Bible, 
that prayer shall be answered ? 

Now it is an obvious, but not unimportant re- 
mark, that there is nothing new, in this instance, as 
to the principles involved. It is conspicuous, and 
will be influential, because of the scale upon which 
the effort has been conducted, and because of the 
intensity of the feeling which has been involved. 
But there are few of us who have not before this 
engaged in the struggle for the life of those most 
dear to us, when we have prayed as well as we 
knew how to pray for life ; but death has been the 
answer. We have felt the trial to faith, and the 
difficulty of submission, more strongly perhaps be- 
fore, than now. The principle is the same, and, 
therefore, there is now no new reason for discour- 
agement. If in all the Providential dealing with 
us hitherto, there has not been discovered reason- 
able ground to distrust the efficacy of prayer, there 
is no new ground for distrust in the existing case. 
God is faithful to His promises, although His ways 
be hidden to us in thick darkness. 



I. But the idea too commonly expressed that 
the prayer of faith necessarily procures as its direct 
answer the object i)rayed for, betrays a false con- 
ception of the very nature of prayer. It has been 
said in public, that God was shut up to orranting 
the life of the President ; that there had been too 
much prayer for him to be suffered to die. And, 
since the event, it has been said that the reason for 
his death must have been some failure to comply 
with the conditions of believing prayer. That had 
we prayed aright, and had he himself believed 
aright, he must have lived. Clerical enthusiasts 
and lay exhorters have combined in such assertions. 
It is, therefore, though not unusual, a fundamental 
and very injurious mistake, betraying no less igno- 
rance of the express teaching of the Bible, than of 
the principles which govern all God's providential 
dealing with us, and all our communion with Him 
in prayer. Leaving out of view all account of 
the conditions of true prayer, supposing all these 
conditions to be acceptably complied with, it still 
can never be true that God has bound Himself 
to grant precisely that which we ask for, or 
prayer is no longer prayer. Because it is in- 
volved in the idea of prayer that there is a 
personal God, who determines by His will that 
which shall be, and who may choose to give or to 
withhold, as seems good to Him. The possibility 
of refusal is pre-supposed in the very offering of a 
petition. We recognize the full right to withhold, 
as well as the power to grant, in the very approach 
to God in prayer. To suppose, therefore, that 
the observance of any conditions on man's part, so 



8 

binds the truth of God that we may confidently ex- 
pect the granting of our desires in the exact form 
in which we j^resent them, is to pervert the very 
nature of prayer, is inconsistent with the essential 
relations which prayer implies, and betrays a 
want of true faith and of submission to the di- 
\ine will, which are the very conditions of accept- 
ance. 

The precise error which is at the base of this 
way of thinking, is that it would subject the will 
of God, which acts in accordance with His omnis- 
cient intelligence, to the limited intelligence of His 
creatures, it supposes it to be possible for God so 
to limit himself by His promise, that the decision 
as to what He shall do in a given case, passes from 
Himself, and is made over to the agreement of His 
believing people. The sceptre of the universe 
changes hands ! So far as wc can see, what we pray 
for would be the best for us, and for every good 
cause. God sees all the conditions and relations 
involved in our rec^uest, and sees that for higher 
ends, and better results, the refusal is necessary. 
The little child sees its highest good in that which 
most attracts it at the moment, or which satisfies 
his most urgent, momentary want. The parent 
knows what is for the good of the child, and love, 
guided by superior intelligence, withholds the 
longed-for benefit. Not otherwise is it between us 
and our Father in Heaven. There may come a time 
in the experience of every one of us, when we can 
see neither wisdom nor love in the procedure of 
Divine Providence. But we must walk by faith, 
and not by sight. We must believe that infinite 



wisdom and infinite love are there. And we must 
submit, not sullenly, as to necessity, but with child- 
like trust, assured that He docth all things well. 

Suppose the contrary were true, and that it were 
possible for God so to limit himself by the con- 
ditions of believing prayer as that the answer must 
inevitably follow ; and what would be the result ? 
What we think to be best would always occur, and 
not what God thinks best. What right thinking 
man, considering all the consequences involved, 
would be willing to incur the responsibility of 
making his requests ? Who would ever be found 
willing to undergo the chastisement of severe sor- 
row, however necessary to the development of his 
character? Who would not be tempted to post- 
pone his requests for spiritual good, if sure he could 
have for the asking, and who would not become de- 
graded by grasping at the nearest and most press- 
ing earthly desire ? With every change of mind 
the petitioner would expect answers as inconsistent 
as his moods. And men of different minds would 
pray for opposite results, and demand immediate 
answer. The farmer would pray for rain, and the 
seaman for fair winds and clear skies. Believing 
hearts would eo into everv battle, on each side, 
praying for victory. Human affairs would become 
involved in utter confusion. Reverence for God 
as the Sovereign Ruler would be destroyed, and 
religion become impossible. No, thank God that 
even a Christian faith does not govern the world. 
Thank God, that not the multitude of prayers, how- 
ever earnest and pure, but the One Infinite Will, 
guided by infinite knowledge and love, directs 



lO 

events. Thank God that we can pray, saying, Our 
Father, which art in heaven. Thank God, that in- 
carnate, crucified and exalted love, and that when 
we pray, we leave our requests in His hands, to give 
or to withhold. Paul prayed, earnestly, that the 
thorns in the flesh might be removed from him. 
Not surely for personal relief only, but for his effici- 
ency in his work. And he prayed thrice over. The 
thorns remained, but his answer was, " My grace is 
sufficient for thee." And a greater sufferer wrestled, 
with strong crying and tears, in the garden, praying 
" Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from 
me." And He prayed thrice over. He also, as the 
apostle tells us, " was heard in that he feared." 
And yet He drank the cup which the Father had 
eiven Him to drink. 

II. But then the difficulty arises, if God will de- 
termine every issue, and not our petitions. His will 
cannot be influenced by our prayers. All events 
are fixed in His purpose, and that purpose is deter- 
mined to the highest ends. He knows what is best, 
He knows what He intends. Prayer cannot change 
His purpose ; and, therefore, as He has commanded 
us to pray, it must be out of regard only to our 
own minds. Prayer is for the comfort and strength 
of the soul, and for communion with God. In a 
word, the value of prayer is to be sought exclu- 
sively in its reflex influence on ourselves. 

As to the whole difficulty, two things are to be 
said, and they seem to be sufficient. In the first 
l)lace we must dismiss the alternative that the value 
of prayer is to be discovered only in its reflex influ- 



1 1 



ence, as a dishonest conception. Shall the prayer 
of faith, believing, expecting, importuning for an 
answer, be offered by a man who feels all the 
while that he is acting a part — that he is only ex- 
pressing himself — and that, in reality, God cannot 
be influenced by him if he would ? Faith in God's 
willingness and power, expectance of the answer, 
could never enter as elements of prayer under such 
conditions. In other words, on this theory prayer 
becomes a totally different thing. Confession, ad- 
oration, communion, might remain, but no sincere 
prayer for help for our souls or amid the afflictions 
of life, would any longer be possible. Prayer, in- 
deed, has its reflex influence. It is, in an import- 
ant sense, its own answer. It is the life-breath of 
faith and love ; it is communion with God. It is 
indeed impossible to overestimate or to overstate 
the importance of this influence of prayer. But the 
reality and truth of this reflex influence depend 
altogether upon the assurance that prayer is an 
efficient cause in bringing about the results prayed 
for. It can have no influence on ourselves unless 
we believe that it prevails with God. Its reflex in- 
fluence is immediately lost, if we cease to believe 
the promise, that what we pray for God will give 

us. 

Then, as to the main difliculty, that God's pur- 
poses are fixed, in the light of His divine knowledge 
and love, and therefore cannot be influenced by 
prayer ; He tells us, on the contrary, that they are. 
The whole trouble is in our understanding, not in 
His conduct, in regard to our prayers. We cannot 
see in any relation, the point of contact between 



12 



the Infinite Mind and our limited and faith lines. 
We cannot understand the relation of His purpose 
to our free will. Yet we know that God acts as 
God, divinely ; that we act as men, freely. The dif- 
ficulty with regard to prayer is no other than 
in reconciling the use of means in any case, with 
the fixity of the divine purpose. The problem is 
intellectually insuperable, in the nature of the case, 
because we cannot comprehend infinity. And yet 
we are not reduced to an absolutely blind faith in 
this respect. Because we can see this much, that 
there is a connection between our praying and God 
giving ; that our prayers, with all their appended 
conditions, go in among the elements of God's pur- 
poses, and are no less fixed as means than the 
events are fixed as results in God's ordinance. 
God knows what the harvest shall be. We know- 
that unless we sow we shall not reap. God's 
knowledge of the harvest includes also his knowl- 
edge of our sowing and reaping. When we are 
sick we send for the physician. God knows 
whether life shall be spared or not. But His pur- 
pose includes within it the skill of the physician, 
and also the prayer of faith, by both of which 
He will bring to pass the result. When we prayed 
for the life of the President, God knew from the 
outset, and through all those anxious burdened 
days, what was to come. But He included in His 
purpose all the prayer that was offered, all the 
efforts made, all the skill lavished, all the influence 
on personal character, and on the future of the 
nation. The prayers were means to His ends. 
They were as efficacious as any other means. They 



were a part of the conditions of His purpose. So 
that while we may never know that we shall re- 
ceive precisely what we ask, we may know that 
except we ask we will not receive. And more, that 
if we ask we shall receive, either that which we ask 
for directly, or something which God sees to be 
better. We see but a very little way, and along a 
very narrow line, along which we would push our 
requests, not knowing what other lines or interests 
of Christ's kingdom may be covered by what seems 
best to us. God's knowledge pervades, as from the 
centre, a limitless sphere, embracing all lines, and 
interests, and destinies of men, and all purposes 
of God. In this infinite sphere our lines are in- 
cluded, and their highest interests secured by 
myriad conditions of whose action we are ignorant. 
But among them, with every best result prayer is 
bound up, as one of the necessary conditions, and 
most powerful secondary means. 

The chief danger lies in allowing mistaken reas- 
oning to have an injurious influence on our faith 
and our practical life. Because we cannot see how, 
is no reason Avhy God cannot, and will not. Let 
us dismiss all trouble from speculations which are 
necessarily beyond our grasp, and return to the at- 
titude of children, assured that it is not alone of 
faith, but by the light of the truest and highest 
intelligence of which we are capable, that we 
pray. And that we know that God hears when 
we say, " Our l^'ather, which art in heaven." 

III. But a difficulty of another sort is. perhaps, 
even more commonly felt by reason of which man\ 



reject the belielthat prayer can have any iniluence in 
modifyino-, or brincjin^ about effects in the external 
world. It is saitl that nature works by her own 
laws, so tliat the sequence of cause and effect in 
the material world is never interrupted, and that 
to pray to God to interfere with their results is 
contrary to all our observation and experi- 
ence of His methods. The materialistic philos- 
ophy which is i)revalent affects the thought of 
unscientific men, and even of religious men, 
so far as this, that some are ready to say that 
the influence of prayer must be confined to the 
moral and spiritual world, but that God does not 
interfere with the operation of natural causes which 
bring rain, or which have to do in the recovery of 
the sick. From the extreme materialism which 
finds the adequate cause of all things in the uni- 
verse without God, through all gradations of opin- 
ion as to the nature of God and his relation to the 
world, there runs this tendency to deny the power 
of [jrayiT in the external world. Either we do not 
know that God is, or He has created forces which 
have outgrown his control ; He has so limited Him- 
self in creation that He can have no part in bring- 
ing about external events. 

At this point it is very necessary for us, for 
practical purposes, to discriminate. An interrup- 
tion of the sec^uence between cause and effect, or 
the production of any effect by the act of God's 
will without the agency of a material cause, we call 
a miracle. And we do not pray to God to perform 
miracles. Not because that we do not believe that 
He has the power now as well as when the Son of 



15 

God was upon earth. Not that we do not recog- 
nize even more wonderful evidences of His power 
in His works now, as in the greatest of miracles. 
But only because the specific conditions of mira- 
cles, and the reason which is given us for their pro- 
duction do not now exist. The objection, there- 
fore, strikes wide of the mark. We do not pray 
for the suspension or Interruption of any law of 
nature. 

But within the sphere of the operation of 
natural law to deny the power of God to direct, 
combine, and to influence towards certain ends, is 
to deny to Him what we claim for ourselves, and 
what constitutes the very field of scientific achieve- 
ment. 

Are we to believe that when the thermometer 
registered 95^ in that sick chamber in the stifling 
atmosphere of the Potomac, the ingenuity of men 
using the simplest device could supply cooled air 
in such proportions that the temperature could be 
kept equally at 75° from hour to hour, and yet that 
God, because He does not work with hands, and by 
the rude, external modes of human interference, 
cannot by His will so co-ordinate and arrange these 
natural forces, that with no interruption of their 
acting, and no contradiction of their nature, He can 
send rain or wind, or heat or cold, a pestilence or 
health, or raise the sick to life, if He so ordain ? Are 
we to believe that by the wit or skill of man, only 
combining and arranging in accordance with natural 
laws, using a line of wire, and some acid and metals, 
the bulletins of every change in the sufferer's con- 
dition could be flashed, hour by hour, to the most 



i6 

remote cities and villages of this vast country, and 
beneath the sea to other countries, causing the 
hearts of all to beat as one heart, in the alternations 
of hope and of desi)air, causing the tenderest 
and most spiritual sympathies of men to be thus 
communicated regardless of time and distance ; and 
are we to deny that God can produce any effect or 
exert any influence o\er the works of His own 
hands ? Can we believe that a man, wounded to 
death, to whom an untoward motion might be fatal, 
could be carried along the lines of a great railway, 
with its ([uick following trains thundering in both 
directions a distance of t\\ o hundred and fifty miles 
in the quarter of a day, yet softly, quietly, gently, 
every train arrested as he passed, not a bell or a 
whistle sounded, nor even the hiss of escaping steam 
allowed ; while the people from Maine to California 
waited with hushed breath to learn the result of the 
experiment ; and that God has no part in bringing 
about the effect of those forces which are in opera- 
tion about us exery day, and which exert so great 
an influence in the mind and spiritual sphere ? May 
God forgive the impious suggestion. Thank God ! 
These tremendous forces, whose delicate and precise 
adjustment are necessary to afford the conditions of 
the life of men uijon the tarth, are not left to them- 
selves. Life does net depend upon the balancing 
and ordering of such forces, without intelligence In 
the management. This rush of worlds through 
space, these powers engendered by the heat of the 
sun, these springing forces bound up in air and 
earth, one little effort of which beyond their ap- 
pointed limit would send us hurtling to destruction 



17 



are in the hands of the Heavenly Father. Which 
is right, this universal instinct of men, that we are 
in the hands of God, and which, when danger 
threatens, or a great sorrow hangs over them, sends 
men of all creeds and classes to prayer to God for 
help ; or the speculations of a few proud, emanci- 
pated philosophers, who have entered into the heri- 
tage of discovery left them by greater men than 
they, men of reverence and faith in God, who would 
have us believe that the crucible, and the micro- 
scope and the scales, are instruments by which we 
can discern all causes and forces which are acting 
in the universe. Rather let us believe that these 
natural laws are themselves not only God's instru- 
ments, but the evidence of his activity. That He 
upholds them in being, and causes them to be as 
they are. That a miracle is no more truly the exhi- 
bition of His immediate energy, then are those of 
His mediated energy. That the intelligence and love 
which we discern in the adaptation of nature, were 
not only impressed in the creation, but are mani- 
fested every moment, and in every change. That 
wherever we see the evidence of wisdom, we see 
God. Wherever there is evidence of beneficence 
there is God. Wherever there is power directed to 
an end, there is the manifested presence of the 
personal God, conducting all things to their best 
results. Let us believe that in Him we live and 
move, and have our being. That we sleep in ciuiet, 
and awake refreshed, because He not only watches 
over us, but sustains us. That every breath, every 
pulse, all our immunity from danger, all our security 
in the ordered sequence of the seasons, and m the 



i8 

stability of society, and the progress of the world, 
depend upon His presence, and on the manifesta- 
tions of His presence and of His power. That He is 
not a God afar off, but nigh us and within us and 
about us. And let us pray to Him therefore, when 
trouble comes, or in peaceful scenes, for the continu- 
ance of his care, sure that He hears us, and saying 
with the confidence of children, " Our Father which 
art in heaven." 

IV. But we do not reach the end of this matter, 
and fully understand the fidelity of God to His prom- 
ise, until we take into the account that prayer may 
be answered in other ways than by the granting of 
the express desire. The withholding of the request 
may be the very condition of blessing greater than 
we hoped. The blessing may come in the form of 
chastisement. Though here we trench upon another 
subject, and must be careful not to fall into the 
danger of interpreting the afflictive dispensation of 
Providence as uniform evidences of His displeasure. 
But we should also mistake if, at a time like this, 
we did not ask whether we have no national sins 
to repent of. May it not be the purpose of our 
heavenly Father to arrest us in our national pride, 
and cause us to look into things which have been 
suffered to go wrong, and use our best endeavors 
to purify our national life '^ Whom the Lord loveth 
He chasteneth. 

Can we not see an answer to prayer in the 
wonderful exhibition of our unity as a people, not- 
withstanding all differences of condition and of 
opinion, and of interest, in this world-wide sym- 



J9 

pathy, in this coming into power of the better and 
more spiritual elements of our common nature ? Is 
it quite true that men are gone mad after material 
things, and have no sense of God and the hereafter, 
after the exhibitions such as we see to-day ? The 
possibilities of religious life, and of power for God, 
which have been shown in this and other praying 
peoples, should be a lesson to us in the future. 

May it not be, God grant it may, that we shall 
see our prayers answered in a more elevated and 
unselfish spirit in our public men, in their continu- 
ing to act on the lesson they have so deeply felt 
and accepted, in the elevation of our method of 
political procedure, to a better, purer and more 
hopeful basis. May it not be that dangers which 
threaten us may be greatly diminished, and our 
institutions secured for many years through this 
discipline and in accordance with our petitions.? 
May it not be that the mantle of the murdered 
President may fall upon his successor, even as the 
mantle of Elijah fell upon Elisha, and that the 
prayers which have ascended as a thick cloud before 
the throne of mercy, may continue to shed gracious 
influence upon his spirit, and that we may yet come 
to acknowledge that God has given us better than 
we asked ? 

Should it not be for each of us, that the indi- 
vidual example of character, of patience, faith, and 
courage in the face of death, should impress us 
deeply with the necessity for the culture of all the 
elements of Christian manhood, and show us the 
true source of character in the Christian life ? And 
that the deep and memorable experience through 



20 



which we are passing may leave us better than they 
found us. In all the strange, exciting story, no 
picture is more full of pathos than that of the 
dying man, propped up upon his pillows to gaze 
out upon the sea he loved so v^ell, fittest emblem 
of God's eternity, and His love, for the few last 
days before his spirit passed out to the Father of 
Spirits, and to the bosom of eternal love. Surely 
he has shown us how^ to die. And so to die it is 
necessary that we pray — pray without ceasing. 

It is matter for devout thankfulness that the 
President of the United States, undeterred by the 
seeming failure of previous prayers, calls upon the 
Nation again to humble itself before God to- 
morrow, and to pray for National blessings. 



iii 



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